The first time Alex Kajitani performed rap for his math class, he thought he failed miserably.
Kajitani wanted to convey a lesson on adding and subtracting decimals in a clever way the students would remember. Instead, he “got completely laughed at” with his song about “The Itty-Bitty Dot.”
It wasn't until a few hours later, when he heard the same students repeating his tune at a lunch table, that he realized the message really had gotten through.
Now, hip-hop beats are a regular feature of instruction from Kajitani, 35, an algebra teacher at Escondido's Mission Middle School and one of five San Diego County Teachers of the Year honored at a ceremony Saturday night. The award puts him in the running for the California Teacher of the Year awards, to be announced in November.
Kajitani's repertoire has expanded considerably since that first try at La Presa Middle School in Spring Valley. As The Rappin' Mathematician, he has recorded two compact discs that have sold as far away as Australia and Europe. (Samples can be heard on his Web site, mathraps.com.)
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Alex Kajitani
School: Mission Middle, Escondido Union School District
Subjects taught: Introduction to Algebra, Algebra I
Age: 35
Years as teacher: eight
Residence: Carlsbad
Other San Diego County teachers of the year
San Diego Unified: Theodosia Ballard, Porter Elementary
Sweetwater Union High: Patricia Midori Blome, San Ysidro High
Grossmont Union High: Tom Waldron, Valhalla High
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“I've always been an avid rap fan,” said Kajitani, whose school serves a heavily Latino population with generally lagging test scores. Besides math concepts, he has written songs that convey positive life-skills messages.
“One of the things that I really make an effort to do is really use authentic rap beats and authentic lyrics, which talk about the neighborhood that we live in,” he said.
Students in this semester's Algebra I class love his style.
“It's fun to come into his class,” Iris Piña said. “You come out smarter then when you went in every day.”
Carlos Valdez said the rhymes remind him of the proper techniques on tests, and that Kajitani seems to have a real knack for the genre. “He's a different person when he raps.”
Some sample lyrics, which may make more sense after a classroom lecture:
“Line up the dot and give it all you've got!” (for adding and subtracting decimals).
“One on top, one below, chop chop chop, away they go!” (for simplifying polynomials).
In his normal classroom persona, Kajitani provides plenty of positive feedback for students doing work at the board. After correct answers, he leads his class through increasingly complex claps, snaps, stomps and drum rolls.
He also tries to make math relevant. Tuesday, he tied drills on percentages to advertising concepts, showing students how some businesses push big savings more than the products themselves. The students then paired up to draw up their own scenarios involving percentage discounts, illustrating concepts through sales on such things as video games, shoes and combo meals.
There is some evidence Kajitani's approach works. His Algebra I students last year outperformed the rest of the district by 20 percent on a standardized test.
Jeff Ristine: (760) 737-7578; jeff.ristine@uniontrib.com
